Cherry Lipsby Jack O'Donnell

Genre:HumourSwearwords: None.Description:You're late for school, but it can wait..._____________________________________________________________________Regular as clockwork I’d be running late for school and by the cherry red phone box that had never rung in peacetime. Sliding down, bouncing off one tussock of grass onto the loose limbed muck, I’d make it to the safety of the fence that was meant to keep us from taking the short-cut and cling onto it for a second, catch my breath, before jumping down onto the verge of grass at the side of the Curley’s house and walk sedately down onto the tarmac. It was a straight road from there to the half past eight, 84 bus, but it forked suddenly in my mind and my feet took me up towards the MacDonald’s house and my fingers would play out the rap-a-tap-tap wake up call on the letter box.I’d hear Mrs McDonald’s feet scrambling like dog’s paws on the linoleum down the stairs and she’d fling the door open.‘Jesus,’ she’d say, with a fag in her gob, taking a millisecond to weigh me up standing there in my school blazer with my hair slicked down and my shiny shoes and my bag hanging just-so, like a rent collector, before turning and sprinting away.‘Is that the time?’ she’d fling back at me as a greeting. ‘John, Gerard, Veronica, Stephen…’ she’d shout up the stairs, naming half the saints in heaven, ‘get-up, get-up, get-up, it’s time for school.’‘I must have slept in,’ she’d say, half-apologetically to herself or me, I was never quite sure, before turning away suddenly and scurrying up the hall and into the kitchen, screaming all the while up the stairs. ‘Get up, get up, get up.’ I wandered up the hall and into the MacDonald house, behind her floating nightie, like a ghost of one of the family.But there had never been time to get properly acquainted. The first time I’d seen Mrs McDonald much the same thing had happened. Only she’d stood slightly longer at the door, with her mouth open, as I’d explained I’d come to see if John was going to school. ‘Come-in. Come-in. Don’t just stand there.’ She’d grabbed at my arm, pulling at my arm, hustling me into the hall like a hat stand and leaving me there, while she trumpeted threats of what was to come for those that were still abed. Noah’s Ark tilting in a storm would have found it difficult to match the door banging and feet stomping and toilet flushing that went on upstairs, but it was survival of the fittest. The cheeky little monkey face of Bernadette would appear first, standing in her yellowing semmit that made do as a nightgown and with a laughing mouth, peer at me like a tourist, to see what I’d do next. Veronica would be one of the first of the older ones to come down the stairs with her cherry red lipstick intact, as if her lips slept, rolled around, chewed up and made a life out of such vermilion colours.‘Jesus, is that the time?’ we’d hear Mrs McDonald screeching in the kitchen and smell burnt toast and the sound of running water and kettles whistling. Veronica would swan into the living room and flick on the radio. It was one of those old fashioned kinds that your granny would have had and should really have been in the bin, but she didn’t seem to mind. She’d casually fold her long white legs underneath her like a knife and idly look out the window until her mother brought in mugs of tea and the first plate of toast and buttered margarine, the cheap stuff that went all runny- shiny like a snottery nose. Mrs McDonald would plonk a mug down in front of me. She didn’t ask what I took. It was milk and two sugars for everyone, apart from the younger ones who, because they were wee, got three or four. By that time it was like standing at a bus stop, as Mrs McDonald pushed and shoved through the crowd to put more toast on the table and I was just another hand, just another mouth.I dutifully gulped mouthfuls of tea down like everybody else. Their couch was patched up like an old tyre, but because I was a guest I had a seat. My fingers, with a tongue-like touch, dedicatedly felt and probed the sticky space under it and tried to find yesterday’s or the day before’s Daily Record, lying scrunched up, to read. I’d edge it out, stealing glances, left and right, to see if anybody noticed, andscramble it onto my lap. I’d read it from the back, the sports pages first, quickly flicking through them. The television pages didn’t take long; the programmes had already come and gone. I’d slow down about page six of the headlines and raise my head like an ostrich in a sand pit.I could feel my Adam’s apple going up and down when I turned to page five it was as if I’d been dipped in the news of that night. I’d scan the living room again before quickly turning to page 3. The first time I’d been amazed. It seemed incredible and so unexpected that I’d stopped chewing my tea and began choking, but not before I’d folded the offending pages over. I almost laughed out loud, whether it was nerves I wasn’t really sure. The picture of the page 3 girls had been excised from the paper, cut around as if they had never existed in newspaper land. Pasted over and its place was a picture of Jesus or Mary or some of the kids’ scraps with such brightly coloured pictures of angels or princesses that it almost hurt your eyes to look at them. And the pictures always changed. I looked up suddenly to see if I could catch the eye of the collage king or queen, but there was only the bovine crunching of toast and the smell of the farmyard.‘Come on or you’ll be late!’ Mrs MacDonald would be doling out money and kisses so that I had to stand tall and skit around the edge of the couch. Veronica would be the only one not to move. She’d sit there to the very last second poking at her ear or nose, or feign some strange womanly malady. Although the living room was packed out and there was the hiss of the radio in the background it was as if it all stopped and there were only Veronica’s arms, a vision of a clatty Venus. Her mouth a gaping maw full of half chewed toast; a knowing cheerio smile; and the ghost of white breasts that rose and fell, appeared and disappeared,beneath her torn nightgown like new moons.Once I even saw a nipple. School could always wait.

Please tell us how much you enjoyed this story.

About the Author

Jack O'Donnell was born in Helensburgh and now lives in Clydebank with his partner, Mary. He claims to be fat, balding and middle-aged.Jack writes for fun and has a blog at http://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman, which he also claims no-one ever reads.